


Past Continuous

by nuclearwinter



Series: Pleonasms [5]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Christmas, Incest, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-24 15:09:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13216386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nuclearwinter/pseuds/nuclearwinter
Summary: Dirk and Dave go to a Christmas party hosted at John and Jade's dorm.





	Past Continuous

**Author's Note:**

  * For [szgrey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/szgrey/gifts).



> Merry Christmas SZ!!! I hope you enjoy!!
> 
> (Humongous thanks to donut for quite literally cheerleading this and contributing several jokes!! Also to Lana, Ven & Rojo for kicking my ass and listening to me whinge until I got this done...)

"Aw, I was hoping you'd be wearing the costume," says Jade, holding open the heavy glass doors to her dorm building for Dave.

"It's in my bag. Didn't think the bus was ready for my swag," Dave says, nearly dropping the door on Dirk when Jade pulls him into a fuzzy hug that's 50% christmas sweater and 50% curly hair. She's so warm and soft, like she always is, and it eases some of the nerves in Dave's chest.

"You don't have to, though. Like I told you before, the RAs said it's optional. I don't think anyone is actually going to wear anything!"

"That's not going to change his mind," says Dirk, a priceless look crossing his face when he gets his own hug. "Um, also hi, thank you for inviting us."

"Thank you for coming!!" Jade beams. "I'm always telling Dave to bring you over. Come on, my room's just down this hall."

"Yeah well, Dirk doesn't have many classes on campus," says Dave, trailing after them. They haven't all hung out since… well. Since he and Dirk started sleeping together. Dave had been worried it would be weird. He isn't quite sure yet what the verdict is on that now. He had accepted Jade's invitation because he loves her and John, but also because he had noticed the bubble he and Dirk had shut themselves in lately. They haven't really been enjoying a normal college life.

It's immediately obvious which room belongs to Jade - the doorframe has Christmas lights and plastic flowers taped along it like an arch, and there's a huge piece of paper with her name in curly handwritten lettering tacked right in the middle of the door.

Inside is an explosion of pots and planters bursting from every available surface, each one sporting an ugly Santa gnome, lit by the seasonal glow of more Christmas lights strung along the beige dorm curtains. There's a Christmas playlist cranking from her desktop computer's tinny speakers, and in her desk chair is John.

"Aw, I thought you were wearing a costume," says John, scooping ice into some glasses lined up along the edge of the desk.

"That's what I said!!" Jade bounces over to her bed and sweeps aside some of her mountain of plush creatures while Dirk greets John, speaking over her shoulder to Dave as she does. "Make yourselves comfortable. I'll get you something to drink!"

"Okay." Dave sits down gingerly on the bed, very aware of all the beady plastic eyeballs looking at him. Across the room, Dirk is showing John the beer he brought and John is pointing him towards Jade's mini fridge. Dirk is smiling.

"Earth to Dave!" Jade chirps, waving her hand in front of Dave's face. "Do you want punch?"

Dave looks down to find her crouching on the floor with an extremely ominous looking bucket. When he looks up, John is hiding behind his own glass and shaking his head very quickly. "Uh, I wanted to try what John's drinking."

"Aw okay," Jade pouts, cracking open the bucket lid. Dave sees browning fruit floating in liquid of a colour and consistency Dave usually sees leaving his body rather than going in. She turns to where Dirk is sitting kind of stiffly by the door on the edge of Jade's rainbow wool rug, and Dave can't see it from this angle but he knows exactly how brightly she is beaming from the deer-in-headlights look on Dirk's face. "Do you want any, Dirk?"

Dave makes significant eyebrows from behind her, but Dirk ignores him. "Sure, thanks."

"All right! Let's get our pregame on! Glass me, John!"

"I don't think people say it like that," John laughs, but he hands her one of the glasses of ice he has lined up along the desk. "You want some of my whiskey, Dave?"

Apparently John is just sipping whiskey on the rocks like an old man. Dave isn't about to rib him after his bro just saved his life there, though. "...You got like, coke or something?"

It turns out he does, and soon enough all four of them are perched around the tiny crowded room with drinks in hand. Dave can't tell from Dirk's face whether the punch is actually as terrible as it looks—maybe it's not, because he and Jade are quickly outpacing them.

"Is your cousin actually going to get himself wasted on that stuff?" John asks, still nursing his first glass of plain whiskey. "My room is on this floor and if he pukes in our bathroom I'm going to be mad."

"I've never seen him wasted," Dave says, honestly. He isn't really a fan of getting to that point himself, after his sister's problems in high school. And their mother's problems in... general. But the idea of Dirk getting sloppy is actually kind of intriguing. He's already talking animatedly with Jade, leaning loose and easy against the door now. "Also, he's not my cousin."

"You know what I mean. Wait, you haven't? This could be pretty funny then."

"Yeah, he's pretty strait-laced." In most ways.

"Exactly."

Both of them are disappointed, though—instead of getting silly, Dirk and Jade just slide deeper into an impenetrable conversation about applied robotics.

Well, Dave's not really disappointed. He sips from his own glass, shooting the shit lazily with John, not really sure whether the warm buzz he is feeling is from the whiskey, or anticipation for the party he can hear starting to get going in the hall outside, or from the sight of Dirk out of the house in his nice jeans and a soft looking sweater, flushed and deeply serious and trying so hard, getting along with Dave's friends.

At some point in the conversation Jade bounces up slightly unsteadily and drags a plastic bag out from under her bed, urging everyone brightly to get ready to go out. She shakes the bag out over her bed beside Dave, and an assortment of Christmassy headbands and hats tumble out. She jams a really adorable pair of reindeer horns on herself, and starts roping Dirk and John into following.

Dave takes this as his cue to pull out his own ultra shit Santa costume from the dollar store: paper thin pants that are so baggy he can just pull them on over his jeans, and some kind of 'Santa jacket' that is more like a kimono style robe without buttons or a sash or anything to keep it closed, as well as a stiff hat that pokes up like a triangle and an itchy fake beard with an elastic strap Jade has to re-staple. Jade helps him tuck the robe thing into his pants to keep it clothed, and it looks so fucking ridiculous. Scratch that, it looks so fucking _amazing_.

John picks out an elf hat for himself. None of the Santa or elf hats will work with Dirk's hair, apparently, so he has to settle for reindeer horns like Jade.

"Oh yeah," says John as they are leaving, "if either of you are planning to score at this party you are explicitly NOT to use my room."

"Oh my god, dude," Dave says. "What, are you planning to 'score?'"

Jade giggles, pushing past them into the hallway. "Maybe I am!"

"Gross! I don't need to know that, Jade, we are _related_."

Dave's attempt at a smirk is probably extremely unconvincing, but luckily Jade and John are too distracted by their own side argument to notice. But the conversation has Dave remembering that Dirk said he used to get laid at house parties all the time. Maybe he would like to score. That'd be fine, anyway. Right from the start that's what they'd said—they're not serious. They're two single guys having fun. And that's why they're here, right? To try having a normal college experience?

He knocks Dirk's shoulder with his. "Forreal, we don't have to stay glued together at the hip all night, right? We can do the wingman thing."

"Right," says Dirk, and Dave is pretty sure that Dirk gets what he means. As the four of them start moving toward the common room, passing tispy kids on the way, the knots in Dave's stomach twist a little, even as John smacks him on the back cheerfully.

Jade opens the door onto a blast of sound and a mass of bodies lit up in swivelling red and green beams, and drags them all right in with a grin.

It's hot and confusing and fuck, Dave has never really been into dancing, but between the whiskey and Jade's bubbly cheer he finds himself swaying along to the beat. He gets a lot of random high fives, which he assumes are for his costume. He drinks from the plastic cups his friends press into his hands until the lights blur, does dorky shimmies with Jade when she grabs his hands, and tries to ignore the way sparks light up his whole body every time Dirk bumps close.

Dave splits off to use the bathroom—the bright lights and white tiles surreal after the dark crush of people—and when he comes back everyone has disappeared into the crowd.

He pushes through bodies until he finds Jade and John sitting on one of the couches where it's a little quieter, which he does not find out is nasty and sticky until they have already pulled him down into it with them. Jade is drunk and giggly, and she puts her face in Dave's crappy fake beard that is probably made of asbestos. Once upon a time it might have been a little awkward to be squashed up against the girl he used to be in love with, but it's not now. It's just nice.

"Hey! I missed you!" she says.

Dave pats her back, a joke on the tip of his tongue, but stops. She's not talking about the ten minutes he was in the bathroom. He ruffles her hair instead.

"Yeah, same."

"You seem really happy. I'm so glad. John's been worried about you," she whispers loudly in his ear.

"I have not!" says John, trying to swat at her over Dave's lap. "You're drunk, Jade."

"I'm not!! And it's true. You were. All, _Dave barely ever leaves the house, what if he's having a tough time, bluh bluh._ "

"Aw bro, were you worried about me?"

"You're my best friend, you dork," says John, warm against his side and smelling of the same damn deodorant he's used since middle school, and Dave has a small and belated epiphany about himself and the number of people on this couch he used to be in love with.

While he attempts to digest that with his alcohol-dampened brain, he realises John is talking.

"—perfectly fine after all, and raring for a 'wingman' or whatever you and Dirk were going on about. Like, if you wanted a wingman, buddy, I'm right here!"

Oh fuck. "No, it's okay, I—"

"No, seriously, I was just kidding before. Well, I wasn't kidding about not doing… stuff... with people in my room, but… if you're ready to get back on the wagon then I'm not going to be a wet blanket about it, bro!"

"Get back on the wagon?" Dave mumbles. "You make it sound like I'm some middle aged widower rancher who lost my childhood sweetheart to a tragic thresher accident and even though everyone in the county knows none shall replace her—"

"Jeez! You know what I mean!" John cuts him off, laughing. Jade slides off Dave's shoulder and into his lap, also giggling. "What about… that girl over there?" 

"She's not my type," Dave says, even though from what he can tell in this lighting she totally is. Maybe. He'd have to talk to her, but he doesn't want to. He's fine here with these chuckle fucks on this grody couch. At least this couch isn't broken.

...Oh. Dirk's not here, he realises.

That's… okay. That's not his business right now.

"What about that girl?" John says, but Dave's eyes don't seem to want to move from a spot on the floor.

"Can I be real for a second," he says, gathering courage from the darkness hiding all their faces.

"Something going on after all?" John says. Jade finds and squeezes his hand, and Dave's heart hurts a little as he realises they must both already know the answer is yes.

"I've been working through some stuff," he says. "Not—not bad stuff. I guess. You don't need to worry, I swear. I'm not like—"

"Slow down, dude," says John, bumping their shoulders together, and Dave breathes in.

"Sorry. I don't… I haven't really thought this through. This conversation." Plus, he definitely hadn't imagined he'd be wearing a crappy dollar store Santa costume while having it.

Jade giggles again, and Dave is about 80% sure she already knows most of it. He hopes she doesn't know all of it, because fuck. "You don't have to tell us now," she says. "We can give you space for a while if you need it. So long as you don't forget about us!!"

"No, I…" He'd asked Dirk for advice on this, actually. Dirk had told him that he had never actually told his friends, since they had figured it out themselves from a series of embarrassing incidents. "I've been… thinking… that maybe I'm..." He swallows. Gotta do it like a bandaid. "Not completely... straight."

"That's cool," says John. Jade squeezes his hand even tighter.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I'm kind of surprised. I never… well, it's cool. I don't know if I can wingman dudes for you, though. Not because I think it's bad!! Just, I, uh. Don't know what you, uh." John laughs, high pitched.

"Oh my god, dude, no. Just no. Let's put a bullet in this subject and bury it out back."

"Thanks for telling us, Dave!" Jade says, warm and sleepy from his lap. "Has Dirk been helping you then?"

Dave is thankfully saved from having to figure out how to answer, because John interrupts. "Why would Dirk be helping?"

"Because Dirk is gay?"

"Dirk's gay??"

Half vindicated that he wasn't the only one who didn't pick up on it and half ready to sink into the couch and die, Dave lets them talk, and bit by bit rejoins their conversation as his stomach slowly unknots.

"I'm so happy you came," Jade sighs. "I wish Rose were here too."

"Let's send her a snap!" John says, already waving his phone in front of their faces, and Dave really hopes that the picture he takes does not capture the fleeting moment of horror he felt the moment he imagined Rose being here to figure everything out with one piercing look.

They take a few more selfies, and then Dave disentangles himself from the Harleybert pile, overheated and thirsty.

Standing up he feels the extra drinks hit harder, and he wanders off to find some goddamn water, John and Jade's warmth still with him, the adrenaline from the conversation making him antsy and light.

At some point in the night the generic dance music had changed to 80s nostalgia, and when he pushes out of the room Africa by Toto is still booming through the door and following him down the hall. He's half formulated a plan to drink from the bathroom faucet when he turns a bend and there's Dirk right in front of him.

 _It's you,_ he goes to say, but he's completely and utterly blindsided by a full body throb of excitement—longing and fear and happiness—and the words lock up in his throat just as he realises Dirk feels exactly the same way. He knows. And he finds himself being crowded backwards into the bathroom, barely registers the bang of the door and click of the lock because Dirk is ripping the ugly beard down Dave's chin and crushing him into a nearly painful kiss.

Dave shoves his hands up under Dirk's sweater, needing to feel more skin, and Dirk gasps into his mouth, kisses him harder. Something—the sink?—bangs into the small of his back and he doesn't give a single fuck.

He can't breathe, can't get close enough, he's so turned on it hurts already. He wants to ask, _Did you even try?_ He knows what the answer is, though. He _knows_. And the knowing is so overwhelming all he can do is grind into Dirk until the sink makes such an ominous noise that they are forced to go slower, huffing out of breath with nervous laughter into each other's mouths, unable to truly stop.

"Your beard hairs are getting in my mouth," Dirk groans. "Why are you so sexy in this stupid thing."

"Shut up and get it off me," Dave manages.

Dirk just shakes his head and rips the Santa kimono out of Dave's waistband, rucking all the fabric up high. "I have a better idea."


End file.
